Five greatest international players from Uttar Pradesh

#2 Praveen Kumar: From stamping his name on the Lord’s Honours Board to fizzling away

Praveen Kumar delivered many inspiring spells for Team India

Medium-pace. Accurate. Swing. In an era when Team India were hardly known for their bowling attack, the trio of Zaheer Khan-Ashish Nehra-Praveen Kumar wreaked havoc, between 2009 and 2010.

Complimenting Zaheer and Nehra perfectly, Praveen stood out for his miserly spells even on the most placid of wickets.

To have overshadowed Sachin Tendulkar’s knock of 91* in the second final of the CB Series in Australia in 2008 with a Man of the Match-winning performance with the ball speaks of a fine talent indeed.

His first two seasons for Uttar Pradesh fetched him 90 wickets and he became an integral part of the Indian line-up thereafter. He was the sole bright spot for India in their disastrous 0-4 campaign in England in 2011 and picked up his first and only 5–wicket haul in that particular series at Lord’s, which put his name amongst the legends on the Honours Board.

He ended up playing only six Test matches and 68 ODI matches for India before anger issues and unimpressive performances threw him off the radar.